


Rebel, Rebel

by BeesKnees



Category: In Time (2011), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Bodyguard, Community: kink_bingo, F/M, Service, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 17:23:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesKnees/pseuds/BeesKnees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sylvia Weis stumbles through time -- until Loki interrupts her fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebel, Rebel

After Will dies, she stumbles through time.

But Loki loves this world. He loves it because despite every struggle the Avengers went through and despite all of Thor’s hopes, it all seems to matter for nothing. The world has constructed itself in a way that lends to its down destruction. The humans that Thor once loved so are destroying themselves as never before. And his brother retreats, unable to continue entrenching himself in a world that seems so lost. He has no stake in it, not with Jane and his companions gone. So, he allows himself to concentrate on Asgard.

But Loki, Loki finds this world all the more captivating now. Now that he plays almost no role in it, he enjoys watching it. He enjoys the way it attacks itself.  
Most of all, he enjoys watching Sylvia Weis. Will Salas bores him; he seeks only justice with the same blindness that Thor tore after it. Philippe Weis bores him because he seeks order and immortality and he’ll find neither. But Sylvia is a different story. Because she is born of that order and finds her path along that of mischief. She is an agent of chaos. And while she might enjoy the justice that her actions bring about as a consequence, Loki _knows_ that’s not why she does it.

He watches her in disguises and wrapped in shadow. They both watch her clock tick down, down, down. Her pulse quickens and the light glows green and she’ll wait until the very last moment until she’ll feed herself crucial minutes. 

She dances on that edge more often now that Will is gone; she is uninhibited, a creature untamed.

But she has left things too long this particular night. She slips down the street, and Loki and Sylvia both know that she is being followed. She has robbed another bank this day. And most of the time has been given out, is continuing to corrode the system. There are three days waiting for Sylvia in the room she is stealing. But on her clock there is a mere thirty seconds left and she is on her own. She walks a little faster and Loki can hear her breathing grow louder. Her heels click along the sidewalk and the Timekeepers continue to follow her. 

And then there are ten seconds and while she has always seemed to slip the noose before, Loki can’t bear the idea of actually watching her hang today. 

He grabs her arm, pulls her forward, and she topples into him in the alleyway. He turns her arm and watches as the clock flicks forward. He grants her crucial seconds, minutes, days. And all the while, all he can hear is the sound of her breathing, because she’s staring, obviously confused. 

And he can understand, because while she wants to break the system, she still must adhere to the time that exists in the system. But he is something outside of it, a creation all of his own, a time granter. A god.

The Timekeepers pass by and they’re unnoticed. 

Sylvia stares up at him, her eyes ringed in darkness. She regains herself, pushes forward. Her fingers find the sleeve of shirt and she pushes it away and then stares when she finds the empty skin. 

“Who are you?” she asks. 

And Loki can’t help but smile, his grin glinting sharply in the low lighting of the alleyway. She asks for a name, but a mere name, even his, cannot describe the entirety of what or who he is. 

Still, he presses forward, lets his hand brush her hair out of his face.

“Call me Loki,” he whispers into the shell of her ear.

Quietly, for the first time, Loki wonders if Thor hadn’t been onto something. Suddenly, he understands the appeal of playing with mortals. He doubts Thor ever consciously came to the same conclusion, but Loki thinks their reasons aren’t so different.

Sylvia draws away from him, just slightly, and he watches the way her eyes widen a little. Her pupils grow larger and he can see the way that’s she worried and intrigued. He thinks these emotions must be the culmination of her life, constantly warring at one another.

“Let me offer my services,” he continues to murmur, thinking that perhaps it’s time to change the rules of this particular game. “It seems you’re in need of a bodyguard.”

“I’m done with bodyguards,” she answers automatically, half scoffing. She raises her chin, her expression defiant.

“You’ve never had a bodyguard like me,” Loki says slyly, his smile sharp, teeth shining in the low moonlight. 

…

She robs another bank, but they expect her. It should come as no surprise, because they’re learning the way she works. There are too many people working on thinking on how to outsmart her now. 

Bullets are flying, and she’s running out the back, case in hand. Her red hair is in her face, legs ready to run. Her pulse beats beautifully, and Loki slides in just as the Timekeepers come to the back of the bank. He catches her around the waist, curving her out of the path of an oncoming bullet. She’s warm underneath his touch, and he doesn’t dare hold her longer than he needs to. She looks at him for just an instant, eyes wide, before she’s careening back down the alley, flinging herself back toward freedom. Loki dissolves back to shadow.

…

The next time she goes back into the lower zones, a newly formed gang captures her. The tie her up, intending to claim some sort of reward. Greed will always claim honor, Loki knows — and that is what keeps Sylvia’s clock ticking down. 

Her captors step out to meet with the Timekeepers, and Loki steps into the room. She’s been clawing at the ropes, and her wrists are raw and bloody. There’s a bruise forming high on one of her cheekbones. She gasps when he enters the room again, but quickly resolves herself.

“I can’t pay you,” she says, and even as she makes the declaration, her eyes flit down to his arm. Even though she knows she has nothing to give, she also knows that there’s no reason for him to take it.

Loki smiles.

He steps in behind her, running his long fingers over the ropes, his touch lingering just briefly on her abraded skin. He watches as her shoulders draw closer together, a small crease gathering in her skin. A shiver runs its way up her spine. He holds her there for a moment longer than he needs to. The ropes are gone away, her wrists held together merely by this touch. He is surprised and delighted that she doesn’t flee right away. 

The moment he lets go of her, he is gone. She is scrambling out of the chair, trying to make it to the window so that she can flee before her captors return.

…

Weeks pass. She has gone into hiding, trying to figure out who it is she can trust. She only does small robberies. She doesn’t walk openly out into the zones. Loki grows bored. Just when he thinks about leaving Midgard, Sylvia reminds him of why he has decided to stay. 

It’s dusk, and she climbs up onto one of the highest buildings in the city. And she steps off it.

Loki watches, and thinks, just for an instant, that he should let her fall. But the thing is, Loki has seen despair. And Sylvia has never despaired, not once, in her journey from home. And, Loki is too intrigued. He can’t let her collide with the ground without finding out what exactly what she was jumping for. 

He snatches her out of mid-air, pulling her back to the roof where she had just been. She’s inhaling quickly, sucking in tight little breaths. She totters on her heels, her fingers clinging to his shoulders tightly. Her face is pale, and it seems to take her a moment a to recover. Loki enjoys every instant, the quiet reminder of how fleeting her life will be. She’s so fragile underneath his hands, so small, that he could break her easily. It’s entertaining to chose to save her instead.

When she does finally look at him, her eyes seem to harden. 

“I want you to kill my father,” she says with little preamble.

Laugher coils tightly in the back of Loki’s throat. So, this had been a calling card. She had gambled on the notion that he would save her. A clever, if not insanely stupid trick.

“Why?” Loki asks. He’s still holding her.

“Haven’t you seen what he’s done to this world?” she asks, fire sparking in her gaze. “He’s destroying it under the guise of good. I could make it better if he weren’t around.”

“Tell me,” Loki whispers.

“Go kill my father,” Sylvia commands, her tone reflective of the regal princess she once was and still is. 

…

Philippe’s office is devastatingly easy to break into. His security, his partners, anybody of any note in Philippe’s world, is far too busy worrying about Sylvia. It’s easy enough for a well-dressed man with a touch of aristocratic look to slip inside. 

He sits at Philippe’s desk while waiting for the man to return and watches the map blinking red with warning. Unheeded, apparently — until it was too late. Philippe is surprised to find a stranger there, but even he is not ill at ease until Loki pulls a knife and deftly slides it into his side.

Something giddy rushes through Loki’s veins, because it’s been far too long since he’s done this. It’s been far too long since he’s even been in a fight, what with the Avengers and Thor gone. He is left to his own games and his own devices. He’s surprised to find how much he enjoys this one. 

He cuts Philippe open, silencing him before he can make too many noises. Loki is not interested in his pleading, nor in giving voice to the lie that he’ll let Philippe live. He takes a trinket for Sylvia, because, if he’s playing the role, why not play it to the end? It might be trite, but Loki doesn’t entirely mind. It’s easy enough to pull Philippe’s heart from his chest, the weight of it warm and steady in his hand. He stares down at it for a moment, and cant help but delight in what Sylvia’s reaction will be. 

…

He finds her quickly enough. She’s holed up in one of the rundown motels on the edge of a town. She’s clutching a gun, the door barricaded. All just in case. She’s grown more cautious, taught herself more than anything she would have learned while she was with Will or her father.

She still spins about when Loki appears in the room, her jaw tightening, the gun raising. She still hesitates for a moment before putting it down on the table beside her. Not far out of reach.

“For you,” Loki says, another razor-sharp smile on his face as he presents her gift. The result of her command, so really, exactly what she’s asked for. 

She does stare for a moment, and Loki can watch her pupils dilate, watch the way her lips part. He thinks that’ll she swoon, but she doesn’t. She rises to the occasion, steps forward, and wraps her fingers around it. She looks down, her hair curving around the planes of her face. She walks away from him, turns on the television, and lets the new of her father’s untimely demise ricochet off the walls.

“What are you?” she asks, and Loki simply sits down on the stain-riddled couch. 

“You already know that,” Loki answers.

She looks down at him, almost as if seeing through him. She raises her chin so slightly that it’s barely perceptible, but Loki sees it. Loki smiles. He goes to his knees in front of her, the action unfamiliar, and wraps one of his his hands around the back of her knee. He smears blood quietly across her alabaster skin as his lips find her inner thigh. He kisses her there gently, a mark, a calling card. For she belongs to him tonight — or he belongs to her; it’s so hard to remember why exactly he had started this game. But he’ll stand by her side for the time being, until his interest winds down, until she steps off the rooftop of a building and he decides it’s not worth it to catch her.


End file.
